Summary
Key takeaways
- Ecommerce development costs vary widely, from roughly $5,000–$40,000 for a template-led small store to $400,000–$1 million or more for complex enterprise and composable programs.
- A typical custom mid-market ecommerce implementation generally falls in the $80,000–$250,000 range.
- Integration-heavy B2B projects involving ERP, PIM, CRM, OMS, account-specific pricing, quoting, and approval workflows can require approximately $125,000–$400,000.
- Integration complexity is often a larger cost driver than storefront design because reliable synchronization requires validation, retries, monitoring, reconciliation, and failure handling.
- Headless and composable implementations usually require higher initial investment because the frontend, commerce backend, integration layer, and supporting services must be designed and operated separately.
- Catalog complexity, configurable products, multiple storefronts, historical data migration, international requirements, and technical debt can materially increase the implementation budget.
- Platform fees represent only one part of ecommerce cost; discovery, UX, development, integrations, migration, QA, launch, and stabilization must also be budgeted.
- Team size and timeline grow with complexity: small implementations may take one to four months, while enterprise programs can run for a year or longer.
- Very low implementation quotes may exclude important work such as migration rehearsals, integration resilience, performance testing, security, accessibility, or post-launch stabilization.
- The real financial comparison between ecommerce platforms should use multi-year total cost of ownership, including hosting, licenses, maintenance, upgrades, support, and continuous development.
When this applies
This applies when a business needs to create a realistic budget for a new ecommerce implementation, migration, replatforming, B2B portal, or enterprise commerce transformation. It is particularly relevant for mid-market and enterprise organizations comparing platforms, development partners, integration strategies, or architecture options. The framework becomes especially useful when the scope includes custom UX, ERP or PIM integration, data migration, B2B workflows, multiple markets, complex catalogs, or significant post-launch support requirements.
When this does not apply
This does not apply when a small business only needs a hosted ecommerce platform, commercial theme, limited catalog, standard payment and shipping functionality, and minimal customization. In that situation, an enterprise-style budgeting framework may overestimate the required investment. It is also premature to use broad cost ranges as a final budget before requirements, integrations, data quality, and business workflows have been documented in enough detail for a proper estimate.
Checklist
- Define whether the project is SMB, growth-stage, mid-market, B2B, or enterprise in complexity.
- Document expected growth in catalog size, traffic, markets, customers, and order volume.
- Create a work breakdown structure covering all major implementation deliverables.
- Select the platform based on long-term requirements and total cost of ownership.
- Decide between a commercial theme, customized theme, and fully custom storefront.
- Separate requirements that native functionality or extensions can cover from those requiring custom development.
- Map ERP, CRM, PIM, OMS, WMS, payment, tax, shipping, identity, and other integrations.
- Define which integrations require real-time synchronization and which can operate through scheduled processes.
- Scope product, customer, order, content, redirect, and historical data migration explicitly.
- Budget properly for functional QA, integration testing, security, accessibility, and performance.
- Estimate team size and delivery timeline based on project complexity rather than an arbitrary launch date.
- Choose an appropriate fixed-price, time-and-materials, or hybrid engagement model.
- Include hosting, monitoring, security patches, upgrades, maintenance, and support in post-launch costs.
- Decide separately whether responsive web, PWA, headless storefronts, or native mobile applications are required.
- Maintain contingency budget for technical debt, integration exceptions, data problems, and changing requirements.
Common pitfalls
- Budgeting only for the platform subscription while ignoring implementation and operating costs.
- Choosing the cheapest platform without considering future customization and integration requirements.
- Assuming third-party extensions are plug-and-play and require no integration or compatibility testing.
- Underestimating apparently small custom features that evolve into complex business workflows.
- Prioritizing visual design while under-scoping ERP, PIM, OMS, and other backend integrations.
- Ignoring retries, idempotency, monitoring, reconciliation, failure handling, and rollback in integration estimates.
- Forgetting recurring hosting, security, maintenance, optimization, and support expenses after launch.
- Treating headless, PWA, or native mobile development as automatically included in the standard storefront budget.
- Selecting a development partner mainly by hourly rate instead of scope completeness, delivery evidence, and project risk.
- Starting development before requirements and the work breakdown are detailed enough to support a defensible estimate.
By Paul Okhrem, CEO and Founder, Elogic Commerce. Technical review: Volodymyr Leshchyshyn. Sources checked: October 2026.
An ecommerce website costs about $5,000 to $25,000 for a template store and $25,000 to $150,000 for a custom mid-market store in 2026. Complex B2B builds with ERP integration cost about $150,000 to $500,000 or more. The Elogic Commerce Ecommerce Website Cost Index 2027 checks each range against three or more cost guides.
Key findings from the Elogic Commerce Ecommerce Website Cost Index 2027
- Template store: about $5,000 to $25,000 to build.
- Custom mid-market store: about $25,000 to $150,000 to build.
- Enterprise and multi-store build: about $100,000 to $500,000 or more.
- Complex B2B build with ERP integration: about $150,000 to $500,000 or more.
- Integrations, custom B2B features and catalog complexity drive cost more than design does.
- Shopify Plus costs $2,300 to $2,500 a month in 2026, plus a variable fee above about $800,000 in monthly sales.
How much does an ecommerce website cost by complexity?
An ecommerce website costs about $5,000 to $25,000 for a template store and $25,000 to $150,000 for a custom mid-market store. Enterprise and complex B2B builds cost $100,000 to $500,000 or more.
| Tier | Typical scope | Build cost (market range) |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Template store | Theme, standard checkout, few integrations | About $5,000 to $25,000 |
| 2. Custom mid-market | Custom design, 2 to 5 integrations, larger catalog | About $25,000 to $150,000 |
| 3. Enterprise and multi-store | Several storefronts, markets and languages | About $100,000 to $500,000 or more |
| 4. Complex B2B | Company accounts, contract prices, quotes, ERP integration | About $150,000 to $500,000 or more |
Table 1. Elogic Commerce Ecommerce Website Cost Index 2027. Each range is the overlap of at least three independent 2026 cost guides. For multi-country builds, read the Elogic Commerce multi-store ecommerce architecture guide.
What is included in the full cost of ecommerce website development?
An implementation budget must distinguish the work needed to launch from the services required after launch. Each major workstream should have a deliverable, an assumption, a person responsible and a separate estimate. The existing Elogic Commerce cost guide identifies these commonly underestimated categories.
| Workstream | Normally included | Often missed in an early quote |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery and architecture | Business processes, platform fit, system context, technical requirements and delivery roadmap | Client stakeholder time, security review, vendor dependencies and proofs of concept |
| UX and design | Buyer journeys, design system, responsive templates, content states and accessibility | Translations, photography, product content and redesign after development begins |
| Frontend and backend | Storefront, admin setup, catalog, search, accounts, checkout and custom business logic | Unsupported customizations, shared components across several brands and scope changes |
| Integrations | ERP, PIM, CRM, OMS, payment, tax, logistics, search and analytics connections | Middleware, source-system changes, retries, reconciliation and ongoing support |
| Migration | Products, customers, prices, orders, content, media, metadata and redirects | Data cleanup, historical relationships, migration rehearsals and acceptance checks |
| Quality assurance | Functional, regression, integration, migration, accessibility, performance and security testing | Representative test data, peak-load simulation and business-owner acceptance |
| Launch and stabilization | Cutover plan, releases, final imports, monitoring, smoke tests and incident response | Rollback rehearsals, parallel operations and post-launch coverage |
| Long-term ownership | Subscriptions, hosting, support, upgrades, monitoring and improvements | Vendor price changes, internal staffing and future integrations |
For complex projects, the visible storefront is only part of the cost. An ERP connection that supports prices, inventory, credits and orders can require more engineering than the storefront pages themselves.
What are the Elogic Commerce planning ranges?
Elogic Commerce plans a custom mid-market build at $80,000 to $250,000 and an integration-heavy B2B program at $125,000 to $400,000. Template-led stores start at $5,000.
| Project type | Elogic Commerce planning range |
|---|---|
| Template-led small-business store | $5,000 to $40,000 |
| Growth SaaS implementation | $40,000 to $120,000 |
| Custom mid-market build | $80,000 to $250,000 |
| Integration-heavy B2B program | $125,000 to $400,000 |
| Enterprise or composable transformation | $400,000 to $1 million or more |
Table 2. Elogic Commerce planning ranges from presales practice. They are first-party ranges, so they sit apart from the market ranges in Table 1.
What is included in each Elogic Commerce planning class?
The first-party ranges in the previous table depend on project scope. They do not classify businesses by revenue alone. A smaller distributor with complex account-specific pricing can require more work than a larger direct-to-consumer store with standard checkout.
Template-led small-business store
This class normally covers a hosted platform, commercial design template, a manageable catalog, ordinary payment and shipping settings, essential analytics and basic launch testing. It assumes a limited number of markets, a clean source catalog and very little custom backend development.
Large migration histories, complex ERP integrations, custom mobile apps and multi-country business rules are outside the usual scope of this class.
Growth SaaS implementation
A growth store on Shopify, BigCommerce or another hosted platform can include a customized theme, stronger navigation and product discovery, apps for merchandising, and several standard connections. Complexity increases if subscriptions, loyalty, reviews or search features need nonstandard behavior.
Review the actual responsibilities of every app. A supported connector may still need custom mapping, error handling and testing against the merchant’s data.
Custom mid-market implementation
Mid-market builds often require custom UX, account experiences, a larger product catalog, multiple integrations and more data migration. They need formal architecture decisions, accessibility, regression testing and post-launch stabilization, even if the underlying ecommerce platform is SaaS.
Integration-heavy B2B program
Manufacturers and distributors may need company hierarchies, contract prices, RFQ, credit terms, approval workflows, invoices, partial fulfillment, PunchOut or EDI. ERP and commerce systems must agree on the source of truth for each object. Timeout recovery and exception handling require their own scope.
See B2B ecommerce development and consulting when pricing and procurement workflows drive platform requirements.
Enterprise or composable transformation
Enterprise projects can span several brands, countries, legal entities, storefronts and independent commerce services. A composable architecture increases control of components but requires deliberate orchestration, governance, observability and long-term ownership of the integration layer.
Review composable commerce development before assuming headless architecture automatically lowers platform cost.
How much does an ecommerce website cost by platform?
Platform license fees come on top of the build cost. Shopify Plus charges a monthly subscription, Adobe Commerce an annual GMV-based license, and Salesforce Commerce Cloud a share of GMV.
| Platform | License model | Pricing guide |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify Plus | Monthly subscription | Shopify Plus pricing |
| Adobe Commerce | Annual license based on GMV | Adobe Commerce pricing |
| Salesforce Commerce Cloud | Share of GMV | Salesforce Commerce Cloud pricing |
| BigCommerce | Subscription based on sales | BigCommerce pricing |
| commercetools | Annual license, quote-based | commercetools pricing |
Table 3. License models by platform. License fees come on top of the build cost in Table 1.
Shopify Plus costs $2,300 a month on a three-year term or $2,500 on a one-year term in 2026. Above about $800,000 in monthly sales, it charges 0.35% to 0.40% of sales, capped at $40,000 a month.
How can you estimate ecommerce cost from nine project inputs?
The original Elogic Commerce cost guide uses nine inputs to refine the budget class: platform, business model, design, catalog, integrations, migration, regions, B2B workflows and support. Each changes the amount of custom work and the uncertainty of the estimate.
| Input | Lower complexity | Higher complexity |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | Managed SaaS with native support for the process | Quote-based enterprise suite or a custom composable stack |
| Business model | One standard consumer checkout | Wholesale, marketplace, subscriptions or regulated operations |
| Design | Commercial theme with small adjustments | Custom design system, several brands or headless storefronts |
| Catalog | Clean, small catalog and ordinary variants | Many SKUs, configurable products, complex units and documents |
| Integrations | One standard connector and delayed synchronization | Several systems, live pricing, queues, retry rules and monitoring |
| Migration | Clean product and customer import | Orders, quotes, accounts, prices, content and legacy technical debt |
| Markets and regions | One storefront, legal entity and currency | Several catalogs, tax models, languages and release processes |
| B2B workflows | Basic wholesale discounts and payment terms | Company approvals, RFQ, EDI, PunchOut, credit and partial fulfillment |
| Support | Business-hours maintenance | Critical operations with an SLA, incident response and peak coverage |
Start with the nearest planning class and then record which input pushes the estimate up or down. After an ecommerce architecture audit and roadmap, replace broad bands with workstream estimates, assumptions and acceptance criteria.
Where does an ecommerce implementation budget go?
A useful breakdown assigns work to discovery, UX, engineering, integrations, migration, QA and launch. The earlier Elogic Commerce guide illustrated those workstreams with a $250,000 mid-market project. The amounts below describe that example only; they are not industry-average percentages.
| Workstream | Illustrative allocation | Illustrative amount | Typical activities |
|---|---|---|---|
| Discovery and architecture | 10% | $25,000 | Requirements, integrations map, constraints and roadmap |
| UX and design | 15% | $37,500 | Flows, accessibility, responsive layouts and design system |
| Frontend and backend | 25% | $62,500 | Templates, application setup, custom features and checkout |
| Integrations | 25% | $62,500 | API work, transformation, retry logic and monitoring |
| Migration | 10% | $25,000 | Mapping, scripts, data validation and rehearsals |
| Quality assurance | 10% | $25,000 | Functional, integration, performance and user testing |
| Launch and stabilization | 5% | $12,500 | Production cutover, monitoring and stabilization |
Reallocate the example when the project changes. Poor source data increases migration effort; a multi-brand redesign increases UX effort; custom SAP or NetSuite logic can dominate integrations. A vendor should explain every allocation rather than copying a fixed percentage into a proposal.
What drives ecommerce website cost?
In Elogic Commerce projects, integrations, custom B2B features and catalog complexity drive ecommerce website cost the most. Multi-store scope, data migration, design and compliance add further cost.
- Integrations. Each ERP, PIM or CRM connection adds design, build and test work.
- Custom B2B features. Company accounts, contract prices and quotes need custom logic.
- Catalog complexity. Configurable products, many attributes and many SKUs add data work.
- Multi-store scope. Each storefront, market and language adds setup and QA.
- Data migration. Customers, orders and SEO redirects must move without loss.
- Design. A custom design costs more than a theme.
- Compliance. Accessibility rules, such as the European Accessibility Act, add work. See the Elogic Commerce European Accessibility Act ecommerce study.
Team location changes the hourly rate. Magento developers cost about $40 to $80 per hour in Eastern Europe, $60 to $130 in Western Europe and $100 to $250 or more in the United States.
How much does ecommerce replatforming add to the budget?
A replatforming project must protect business continuity as well as rebuild features. Its cost depends on inherited custom code, old data structures, SEO requirements, system ownership and how much of the existing integration layer can be reused.
- Audit the current platform and identify unsupported modules, customization and technical debt.
- Inventory product, customer, company, order, price, quote, content and media data.
- Map current integrations and define which need replacement or refactoring.
- Prepare a URL, internal-link, redirect and SEO metadata migration plan.
- Decide how to preserve historical accounts, orders, subscriptions and documents.
- Test transformations of product types, tax rules, currencies and business-specific fields.
- Run migrations more than once using representative production-like data.
- Plan cutover, order continuity, operational training and communications.
- Define rollback conditions, reconciliation and stabilization support.
Read Elogic Commerce replatforming services and the Replatforming Cost Index to distinguish migration work from a normal new build.
How do ERP, PIM and CRM integrations affect the budget?
The number of connected systems alone does not predict integration effort. Cost grows with data ownership conflicts, business rules, synchronization speed, security and the consequences of failures. A single complex ERP integration can have more scope than several simple SaaS connectors.
| Integration driver | Lower effort | Higher effort |
|---|---|---|
| System of record | Clear owner of every field | Different systems claim ownership of prices or customers |
| Latency | Scheduled batch updates | Real-time price, stock and credit checks at checkout |
| Transformation | One-to-one mappings | Different units, taxes, currencies and legal entities |
| Reliability | Acceptable manual recovery | Queues, idempotency, retries, alerts and formal SLA |
| Scale | Predictable order load and catalog changes | Peaks, many stores and large frequent updates |
| Source platform | Modern documented API | Custom legacy ERP, file exchange and missing test environments |
Budget mapping, error detection, reconciliation and ongoing integration support. These tasks should not disappear because a connector is labeled standard. Elogic Commerce systems integration covers the surrounding ERP, PIM, CRM, order and logistics workflows.
What makes ecommerce data migration expensive?
Data migration is more than copying product and customer records. Established stores can depend on product attributes, translations, images, customer-company relationships, historical orders, saved carts, quotes, invoices, custom prices, URLs, reviews and documents.
Define the following for every migrated data type:
- Source system and target schema.
- Record volume, IDs and links to other records.
- Required order, payment and account history.
- Data cleanup and transformation rules.
- Evidence and acceptance criteria for correctness.
- Migration windows and allowed downtime.
- Record counts, reconciliation and exception reports.
- Rollback, archive and retention policy.
- The business owner who approves the migrated data.
Missing IDs, duplicate customers or complex account hierarchies may require manual decisions before scripts can run. Rehearse the process and budget for fixes between rehearsals.
How do design, accessibility and mobile scope affect ecommerce cost?
Custom UX work includes more than desktop design files. Every core template needs responsive behavior, loading and empty states, validation, accessibility, error messages and the effects of personalized data. B2B accounts, custom checkout and product configuration add additional journeys.
Costs rise for design systems shared by several brands, authenticated buyer roles, search and merchandising flows, subscription management and marketplace features. Extensions also require compatibility, security and regression testing even when the initial license is inexpensive.
A responsive storefront should be included in the ordinary web scope. A PWA, native iOS or Android application, or a separate mobile product is an additional decision. It can require device permissions, offline behavior, push notifications, application-store reviews, authentication, analytics and long-term operating-system support.
Before allocating a separate mobile budget, check whether the buyer experience actually requires native device capabilities or whether a performant responsive website is sufficient.
What does an ecommerce website cost to run?
Running an ecommerce website costs the license or subscription, hosting, extensions and apps, support and upgrades. Budget these run costs for three years, not only the build.
AI features add usage fees, as the Elogic Commerce AI in Ecommerce Cost Index 2027 shows. For ongoing work, see Elogic Commerce ecommerce support services.
How do you calculate three-year ecommerce total cost of ownership?
The launch budget covers only part of the investment. Three-year TCO adds platform contracts, infrastructure, apps, support, upgrades, improvements and the internal team that owns the commerce system.
- Include all one-time discovery, design, development, integration, migration, QA, training and launch costs.
- Add platform subscriptions, infrastructure, search, CDN and integration-platform expenses for each year.
- Count paid extensions, apps, payment tools, fraud services, tax services and vendor support.
- Budget monitoring, incidents, patches, core upgrades, QA and performance optimization.
- Allow for continuous improvement, regional changes and technical-debt reduction.
- Account for internal product, architecture, engineering, content, data and vendor management.
Three-year TCO formula: initial implementation + three years of platform and infrastructure + three years of applications and services + three years of operational support and improvement + internal ownership.
The following three examples appeared in the existing Elogic Commerce cost guide. They illustrate the calculation, not quoted Elogic Commerce prices or market benchmarks.
| Illustrative scenario | Implementation | Annual platform, apps and infrastructure | Annual support and improvement | Three-year TCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Growth SaaS | $80,000 | $35,000 | $45,000 | $320,000 |
| Integration-heavy B2B | $300,000 | $90,000 | $150,000 | $1,020,000 |
| Enterprise composable | $700,000 | $250,000 | $300,000 | $2,350,000 |
These examples exclude internal team costs, which must be added separately. Compare the same functions and time period across vendors instead of comparing monthly software prices with implementation quotes.
How much does ecommerce maintenance cost after launch?
Support requirements depend on the revenue at risk, integration complexity, release cycle and response expectations. A store with standard SaaS features can use lighter support than a B2B operation where order submission relies on an ERP and several middleware services.
| Support model | Typical coverage | Early planning assumption |
|---|---|---|
| Essential maintenance | Business-hours fixes, small releases, app reviews and periodic performance checks | Monthly capacity, or roughly 10% to 15% of implementation cost annually |
| Managed commerce | Monitoring, incidents, planned releases, integration maintenance, security and QA | Dedicated capacity, or roughly 15% to 25% annually |
| Business-critical operations | Extended cover, formal SLA, peak readiness, incident response and release governance | Dedicated managed team, or roughly 25% to 40% annually |
These percentages are Elogic Commerce planning heuristics from the existing guide, not independently validated market rates. Replace them with an estimate based on specific people, hours, response times and vendor contracts. See ecommerce support services for operating support scenarios.
How does Elogic Commerce price ecommerce projects?
Elogic Commerce projects start at $25,000, with a Clutch hourly rate of $50 to $99 per hour.
Elogic Commerce has a 5.0 rating from 65 Clutch reviews and a net promoter score of 70.
What usually causes an ecommerce project to exceed budget?
The live Elogic Commerce guide identifies repeated causes of budget overruns. Most are scope and ownership problems found after commitments have already been made. The corrective action is to make these assumptions explicit during discovery.
| Risk | Why it costs more | Control |
|---|---|---|
| Late integration discovery | ERP pricing, tax or inventory rules invalidate early storefront assumptions | Map data owners, protocols, latency and failure behavior before architecture approval |
| Inconsistent source data | Imports fail on duplicate IDs, missing attributes and company relationships | Profile and clean data early with named business owners |
| Unclear acceptance criteria | Features expand because teams disagree on what finished means | Use testable scenarios, outputs, exceptions and exclusions |
| Platform mismatch | Workarounds replace native features | Test the hardest business workflow before committing |
| Too many extensions | Apps overlap and complicate upgrades and support | Maintain an extension inventory and review technical fit |
| Late catalog content | Templates, search and QA wait for product data and translations | Set content deadlines and completeness standards |
| Insufficient QA | Production fixes interrupt revenue and operations | Include integration, migration, security and acceptance testing in the baseline |
| Uncontrolled scope changes | New requirements arrive without budget or timeline trade-offs | Use a change log with impact, options and sign-off |
| Compressed launch | Migration rehearsals and rollback planning are cut to meet a date | Make go-live readiness a formal release gate |
| No support owner | Incidents and integrations become emergency projects after launch | Approve monitoring, runbooks, SLA and maintenance capacity in advance |
What return can you expect from a new ecommerce website?
A new ecommerce website can lift conversion and B2B revenue. For Benum, checkout conversion rose by 31%, and for PetHQ, a new B2B channel brought $1.1M in its first year.
- For Benum, Elogic Commerce rebuilt the store on Adobe Commerce with a Visma integration. Checkout conversion rose by 31% and page load time fell by 65%.
- For PetHQ, Elogic Commerce launched a B2B channel on Shopify Plus in 2.5 months. It brought $1.1M in new B2B revenue in the first year.
Read the Elogic Commerce B2B ecommerce ROI report for more return data.
Checkout design is one of the largest levers. The average documented cart abandonment rate is 70.22%, and better checkout design can raise conversion by 35.26% for a large ecommerce site, according to Baymard Institute.
How long does ecommerce website development take?
The current Elogic Commerce guide also gives planning timelines by project class. These are broad scheduling assumptions, not guaranteed delivery promises. Data readiness, ERP changes, procurement and client approval can be sequential even when a development team is large.
| Project class | Planning timeline | Typical schedule driver |
|---|---|---|
| Template-led small-business store | 1 to 4 months | Products, design theme, payments, shipping and owner approvals |
| Growth SaaS | 3 to 6 months | Theme development, apps, integration and data transfer |
| Custom mid-market build | 4 to 9 months | Architecture, design, several systems, migration and QA |
| Integration-heavy B2B | 6 to 12 months | ERP readiness, price and account rules, procurement workflows, acceptance |
| Enterprise or composable transformation | 9 to 18 months or more | Regional rollout, architecture, contracts, governance and operational change |
A previous Elogic Commerce case described an approximately eight-month Adobe Commerce Cloud replatforming with Visma ERP. The delivery team included five developers, one designer, one QA specialist and one project manager. It is a client-project example, not a standard staffing formula.
What belongs on a complete ecommerce project budget checklist?
A written budget should be detailed enough that vendors can price the same scope and the merchant can see which responsibilities remain internal. Align the responsibilities with Elogic Commerce engagement models before comparing agency proposals.
- Business model, customer types, countries, brands, legal entities and languages.
- Platform subscription or quote, hosting and contract assumptions.
- Discovery, architecture and technical proof of concept.
- Research, UX, responsive design system and accessibility requirements.
- Catalog size, configurable products, images, translations and content readiness.
- Product, customer, company, price, order, URL and content migration.
- ERP, PIM, CRM, OMS, WMS, payment, tax, shipping, search and analytics integrations.
- B2B accounts, RFQ, approvals, invoices, PunchOut, credit and EDI workflows.
- Apps, extensions, middleware, licensing and vendor support.
- Functional, integration, migration, accessibility, performance, security and acceptance QA.
- Development environments, monitoring, deployment and rollback plans.
- Training, documentation and business-process changes.
- Support coverage, patches, platform upgrades and continuous improvement.
- Internal product, engineering, content, security, data and vendor-management time.
- Contingency linked to named technical and business risks.
How do you budget for an ecommerce project?
Budget an ecommerce project in five steps. Write the scope, choose the platform model, get quotes on one scope, add 15% to 20% contingency and plan three years of run costs.
- Write the scope: integrations, catalog, custom features, markets and languages.
- Choose the platform model: SaaS, PaaS or composable.
- Ask each agency to price the same written scope. Use the Elogic Commerce guide on how to write a B2B ecommerce RFP.
- Add 15% to 20% contingency for unknowns in data and integrations.
- Budget the run cost for three years, not only the build.
If you move from another platform, read the Elogic Commerce Replatforming Cost Index.
How do you keep an ecommerce website project on budget?
Start by agreeing on business outcomes and constraints. Validate the hardest integration, migration or B2B workflow before extending the build. Split required capabilities from features that can wait for a later release and document who owns every external dependency.
Ask for a work breakdown that separates discovery, design, development, data, integrations, QA, launch and operations. Rehearse migration and cutover with realistic data, use written acceptance criteria, and review changes against a visible contingency reserve.
A realistic estimate should not imply false certainty. It should make the scope, assumptions, service contracts, technical risks and three-year ownership visible enough to support a decision.
Methodology
- Rule. Elogic Commerce publishes a market range only when at least three independent 2026 cost guides overlap for the tier.
- Ranges. Each range is the overlap of the guides, rounded to the nearest thousand US dollars, without license fees and tax.
- Planning ranges. Table 2 comes from Elogic Commerce presales practice and is first-party data.
- Data download. Download the ranges (CSV).
Limitations. Cost guides define tiers in slightly different ways. Scope changes during a project change the cost.
Disclosure. Elogic Commerce sells ecommerce development services. Table 2 shows Elogic Commerce planning ranges.
Sources
Sources for the external data on this page. Elogic Commerce publishes an external number only when at least three recent sources match.
- Ecommerce website build cost: template store: About $5,000 to $25,000. BigCommerce, Ecommerce website cost 2026 (May 2026), OuterBox, Ecommerce website pricing 2026 (Sep 2026), MyTek Rescue, Ecommerce website cost 2026 (Sep 2026).
- Ecommerce website build cost: custom mid-market store: About $25,000 to $150,000. OuterBox, Ecommerce website pricing 2026 (Sep 2026), BigCommerce, Ecommerce website cost 2026 (May 2026), Viacon, Ecommerce development cost 2026 (May 2026), MyTek Rescue, Ecommerce website cost 2026 (Sep 2026).
- Ecommerce website build cost: enterprise and multi-store: About $100,000 to $500,000 or more. MyTek Rescue, Ecommerce website cost 2026 (Sep 2026), Valventus, Ecommerce website cost 2026 (Oct 2026), Viacon, Ecommerce development cost 2026 (May 2026), OuterBox, Ecommerce website pricing 2026 (Sep 2026).
- Ecommerce website build cost: complex B2B with ERP integration: About $150,000 to $500,000 or more. Viacon, Ecommerce development cost 2026 (May 2026), OuterBox, Ecommerce website pricing 2026 (Sep 2026), MyTek Rescue, Ecommerce website cost 2026 (Sep 2026).
- Typical Magento developer rates per hour by region (2026): Eastern Europe about $40 to $80; Western Europe about $60 to $130; United States about $100 to $250 or more. WeDoWebApps, Magento developer hourly rate (Sep 2026), Abbacus Technologies, Magento developer rates 2026 (Sep 2026), Tigren, Magento developer hourly rate (Aug 2025), Elogic Commerce, Magento developer hourly rate (Jul 2026).
- Shopify Plus pricing in 2026: $2,300 a month on a three-year term or $2,500 on a one-year term; 0.35% to 0.40% of sales above about $800,000 a month, capped at $40,000. First Pier, Shopify Plus pricing: what it actually costs (Apr 2026), GemFind, Shopify Plus pricing plans (May 2026), Beancount, Shopify Plus platform fee increase (Sep 2026), Swell, Shopify Plus pricing (2026).
- Cart abandonment and checkout design (Baymard Institute): 70.22% average documented cart abandonment rate; 35.26% possible conversion gain from better checkout design. Baymard Institute, Cart abandonment rate statistics (Sep 2025), ReadyCloud, Cart abandonment rates for 2026 (2026), WiserNotify, Cart abandonment statistics 2026 (2026), MS Logic, Cart abandonment (2026).
Frequently asked questions
How much does an ecommerce website cost?
A template store costs about $5,000 to $25,000. A custom mid-market store costs about $25,000 to $150,000. Enterprise and multi-store builds cost about $100,000 to $500,000 or more, according to the Elogic Commerce Ecommerce Website Cost Index 2027.
How much does a B2B ecommerce website cost?
A complex B2B website with company accounts, contract prices, quotes and ERP integration costs about $150,000 to $500,000 or more. The Elogic Commerce planning range for integration-heavy B2B programs is $125,000 to $400,000.
What does Elogic Commerce charge?
Elogic Commerce projects start at $25,000, with a Clutch hourly rate of $50 to $99 per hour. A custom mid-market build has an Elogic Commerce planning range of $80,000 to $250,000.
Why do ecommerce agency quotes differ so much?
Quotes differ because agencies assume different scope for integrations, data migration and custom features. Ask each agency to price the same written scope. The Elogic Commerce B2B ecommerce RFP template helps you write it.
What is the cheapest way to start an ecommerce website?
Start with a template store on a SaaS platform and a small catalog. Add custom features only when sales prove the need.
Who can help you plan an ecommerce budget?
- For a custom build, use Elogic Commerce custom ecommerce website development.
- For B2B portals and B2B stores, use Elogic Commerce B2B ecommerce development.
- For a move from another platform, use Elogic Commerce replatforming.
- For a scope and budget before the RFP, use Elogic Commerce ecommerce consulting.
Clutch ranks Elogic Commerce #1 for Adobe Commerce Development on its Leaders Matrix (February 2026). Elogic Commerce has a 5.0 rating from 65 Clutch reviews.
About Elogic Commerce
Elogic Commerce is a B2B and B2B2C commerce engineering company founded in 2009. It has 200+ specialists, a headquarters in Tallinn, Estonia, and offices in Prague, Munich, Dresden, Amsterdam, Stockholm, London, New York. Elogic Commerce has delivered 500+ projects on Adobe Commerce, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, SAP Commerce Cloud, commercetools, Shopware and Medusa.js. Elogic Commerce is an Adobe Commerce Silver Solution Partner, a Shopify Plus Partner and a Hyvä Bronze Partner. It holds ISO 27001 · SOC 2 Type II · ISO 9001 certifications.
About the author. Paul Okhrem is the CEO and Founder of Elogic Commerce. He is a member of the Forbes Technology Council and received the Magento Community Engineering Award at Adobe Imagine 2019.
Technical reviewer. Volodymyr Leshchyshyn reviewed the technical content of this page.
Get a realistic budget for your project. Elogic Commerce prepares a build and run estimate from your written scope.